Judaism2

Judaism

Dustin Blackstock

Jews are greatly involved with God and the relationship with the people of Israel.

"It has been estimated that one-third of our Western civilization bears the marks of its Jewish ancestry." (Hudson Smith)

It is one of the oldest religions still remaining today. Judaism started out as a small religion in the small nation of the

Hebrews, going through much persecution over thousands of years.

The Jewish Bible which is referred to as the Tanakh, which is made up of three different parts: the Torah, which means "Teaching",

Neviim which means "Prophets", and Ketuvim which means "Writings". The Torah refers more to the oral law, said to have been

revealed to moses on Sinai.


Judaism is the smallest religion, only about 14 million Jews worldwide. In Israel, of that population there are 4.9 million, and

5.9 million in the United States.



Some major Jewish holidays include The Passover, which focuses on reading the Haggadah which means "telling". Which tells about

the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.


The Sabbath is another holiday in which it reflects God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, most refer to this as the

most important holiday in the entire Jewish tradition. As discussed in the Talmud, this day prohibits over thirty different types of labor

from cooking to sewing. They do this because being creative, or doing an activity that creates something, just as God did.



There is only one form of Judaism that is recognized by the state of Israel, with is Orthodoxy. Everywhere else Jews have split into

different branches. Orthodox Jews are pretty much the ones that practice the Mosaic law, which are the laws God gave the

Israelites through Moses. All branches respect the Torah and teach the Jewish story of exile and return, they differ in ways such as

how they interpret the halakha, which is the interpretation of Jewish laws. Christians base themselves on faith where Jews are mainly

about ritual and ethics.

Of all the Jews in America, 39 percent are reform, 33 percent are conservative, and 21 percent are orthodox, but most do not

belong to any synagogue.